But she was not entirely given up to science. We find her making with her own hands a quantity of orange marmalade for a friend, who had brought her back minerals from a foreign land, to take on his next voyage, and she enjoyed an evening at the play as much as anyone.
The long illness and death of their eldest child fell very heavily on Mrs. Somerville, and for a time she could not even work. Then they moved to Chelsea. Here she was asked to write an account of a French book which she had read on astronomy, a book which only some twenty people in England knew, and she was chosen above all the learned men to write on this difficult subject. It was a vast undertaking; the more so as she still saw and entertained friends, not wishing to drop society altogether.
Moreover, it was not known what she was writing, as, if it turned out a failure, it was not to be printed. In the middle of some difficult problem a friend would call and say, “I have come to spend a few hours with you, Mrs. Somerville,” and papers and problems had to be hidden as quickly as possible.
When it was finished, the manuscript was sent to the great astronomer Herschel, who was delighted with it.
“Go on thus,” he wrote, “and you will leave a memorial of no common kind to posterity.”
Mrs. Somerville never wrote for fame, but it was very pleasant to have such praise from one of the greatest men of science living. The success of her book proved its value, and astonished her. Seven hundred and fifty copies were sold at once, and her name and her work were talked of everywhere. Her bust was placed in the Great Hall of the Royal Society; she was elected a member of the Royal Academy in Dublin, and of the Natural History Society at Geneva. A bust of her was made the figurehead of a large vessel in the Royal Navy, which was called “Mary Somerville,” and lastly, she received a letter from Sir Robert Peel, saying he had asked the king, George IV., to grant her a pension of £200 a year, so that she might work with less anxiety.
Here was success for the self-taught woman, raised by her own efforts higher than any woman before her in any branch of science, and it is pleasant to find her the same modest character after it as she was before.
Her health being broken, she went to Paris. Here she still went on writing; but being very weak and ill, she was obliged to write in bed till one o’clock. The afternoons she gave up to going about Paris and seeing her friends.
Some years after, her husband being ill, they went abroad to Rome, where they made many friends. One friend is mentioned as having won Mrs. Somerville’s heart by his love for birds. The Italians eat nightingales, robins, and other singing birds, and when the friend heard this, he cried:
“What! robins! our household birds! I would as soon eat a child!”